NCAA puts controversial recruiting rule changes on hold

Mar. 7, 2013
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Clemson head football coach Dabo Swinney discusses the 2013 recruiting class that signed with the Tigers during a news conference on national signing day Feb. 6. The NCAA on Thursday announced it was pulling back on some aspects of recruiting deregulation that it had approved in January. / Mark Crammer, AP

by Dan Wolken, USA TODAY Sports

by Dan Wolken, USA TODAY Sports

In January, the NCAA adopted 25 measures to deregulate recruiting. Thursday, two of those proposals were put on hold in response to a growing wave of negative feedback from a variety of schools.

The two suspended proposals - related to recruiting staff size and printed materials that can be sent to recruits - will go back to the Rules Working Group, which authored the initial recommendations, for fine-tuning before the next NCAA board of directors meeting in May.

Last week, NCAA vice president David Berst told USA TODAY Sports that the NCAA would be responsive to the concerns from member schools about deregulation and "modify as necessary" before the next board meeting.

Shortly after the board of directors voted on the deregulation package, several football coaches and athletic directors - including the Big Ten in a written statement - came out publicly against some of the changes, even though most of them had been in the legislative pipeline for months.

The concerns centered mostly around escalating the "arms race" environment in recruiting, and in particular the ability of some programs (Alabama, in particular) to hire NFL-style personnel departments to do nothing but recruit. Currently, recruiting can only be done by full-time coaching staff members with on-field duties.

The other controversial rule changes dealt with the elimination of size and cost restrictions on printed materials and unlimited text messaging to recruits, the latter of which is still in play at the moment. Several athletic directors expressed concerns about the impact on their budgets if, for instance, schools started sending Fathead posters with pictures of recruits on them.

Any proposal adopted by the board of directors can be defeated by 75 override votes. Berst said some of the rules had already received override requests and that the NCAA would collect feedback from those opposed before massaging the controversial parts of the package.

Slimming down the NCAA rulebook has been at the forefront of NCAA President Mark Emmert's agenda since the summer of 2011 when he publicly talked about it following a summit with college presidents. The NCAA essentially wants to get out of the business of making rules it can't enforce, but the pushback on some parts of the package indicates that college athletics may not be ready for a full deregulatory environment.

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